


It Starts With a Cup of Tea

by Anonymous



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Brief Holocaust references, Cooking, Domestic, Happy Ending, Kink Meme, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 01:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik doesn't think he can ever tell Charles how he feels, but he does know how to cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Starts With a Cup of Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prlrocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prlrocks/gifts).



> Based on this prompt: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/8700.html?thread=19962620#t19962620

Charles has repeatedly told Erik that he needn’t stay if he finds it disturbing, but Erik refuses to leave his side. He knows Charles loves the rush of sensing all those mutants, all that potential, but he can’t just let his friend become a government experiment, so he stays and watches. He will protect Charles in any way he can. Today, Charles sags as Cerebro powers down, and instantly Erik is there to catch him.

“Are you alright?” He keeps his voice steady, but it takes effort. Charles is smiling contentedly and yet he looks so very worn.

“I’m fine, Erik, just tired.”

Still, he doesn’t object when Erik keeps a steadying arm around his waist and guides him back to his room. He curls into his pillows when Erik helps him settle onto the bed and it makes Erik’s chest ache. He knows what Charles is capable of  (how could he not?) but at this moment he looks like a child or possibly some kind of warm, furry creature. Charles rubs at his temple and frowns, nuzzling his head further into the pillow. Erik wants to do something for him, anything to bring him comfort. Tea. Charles likes tea.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and when Charles makes a noise of assent he slips out of the room and makes his way to the kitchen.

The kitchen is his favorite part of the mansion. It’s abominably large like the rest of the house, but it’s full of metal: knives and pots and pans and whisks. If the need arose, he could transform it into an armory with little more than a thought. There’s more to it than that, though. The kitchen is a place he associates with comfort and warmth and family. He remembers helping his mother prepare dinner as a child. No matter what she’d made, it had always smelled amazing, and he’d been so proud to have aided in its creation. It’s another memory that Charles has helped him to recover. As Erik fills the kettle and waits for the water to heat, he thinks how Charles has also become irrevocably tied to his concept of “home”. He isn’t sure that he can stay here once he’s killed Shaw, and yet he doesn’t know how he could possibly leave. If there will ever be a place where he belongs, this is it.

He takes the kettle off the stove just in time to prevent it from whistling. It’s the one sound in the kitchen that he can’t stand; it’s too much like screaming. But he won’t think of that now. Instead, he’ll focus on making the tea. Charles likes chai, creamy and sweet and decadent. Milk and honey, Erik thinks. That’s what Charles is to him. He can never say those words out loud, can’t even think them with Charles nearby, but he can give Charles this.

He brings the tea to Charles’s room and raps lightly on the door.

“Hmmm?” He sounds at least half asleep, and looks it too.

“I made you tea. Would you like it? I can find a coaster and leave it on the nightstand if you’d rather rest now.”

Charles shakes his head and breathes a happy sigh. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you.” He props himself up into something like a sitting position and holds out his hand to take the mug from Erik. Charles moans in satisfaction upon taking the first sip and the sound makes Erik bite the inside of his cheek as something inside him twists. It’s a noise he could get used to hearing— except no, he could never adjust to anything so magnificent. Even if he heard it every day for the rest of his life, it would always fill him with awe.

“Ohh, this is exactly what I needed,” Charles says.

Those words, that voice in this room! What Erik would give to hear it under different circumstances! The images it brings to his mind… Erik can’t think about that here.

“Good. Sleep now.” He hurries from the room, hoping that Charles hasn’t heard his thoughts.

 

A few days later Charles mutters something about spice and apples during training. Erik winds up in the kitchen again, kneading dough. The rhythmic motion feels good, comforting, and it’s surprisingly nice to focus his energy into such a domestic task. He dices apples and mixes them with sugar, butter and flour. He roots through the cupboards to find cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg and when he discovers a little bottle of vanilla extract he adds a bit of that too. He presses the dough into the pan carefully and spoons in filling, smoothing it and weaving strips of pastry together to place on top.

Erik stays in the kitchen while the pie bakes. It’s not that he thinks one of the younger mutants will eat it if he isn’t there to keep an eye on it, though the thought does occur to him. He stays because he doesn’t want to leave. It’s so warm beside the oven. Warm like Charles’s hand when it touches his shoulder or pats his knee. Erik knows how foolish it is to think it, but surely if there was a place for such things it would be here. In this room, he can imagine what it would be like to feel that warmth on his lips and under his hands. Until he met Charles, he hadn’t known what it was like to want another person. He knows so well what it’s like to crave revenge and destruction, and what it’s like to be starving and cold. He knows about that kind of wanting, but what he feels now is nothing like it. He thinks of touch and tenderness and he longs for it more than he fears it. There’s a stab of guilt there, that he should desire anything but retribution. Erik survived when so many others did not and how can he want anything after that? What right does he have? But he continues to want all the same.

 The oven beeps at him and he stands, clears his mind and grabs the oven mitts to take out the pie. When it cools a little, he cuts a slice and puts it on a plate before wrapping the rest in foil. He takes the plate up to the study and knocks at the door.

“Come in.” Charles is sitting in his customary armchair, reading something or other. He looks up, and when he sees Erik he smiles. Or perhaps that smile is for the pastry.

“I felt like baking,” Erik says, one shoulder coming up in a half-shrug.

“It smells wonderful! I was just thinking about apples earlier, too.”

“And mumbling about them.”

Charles looks a little sheepish. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that this time of year always makes me nostalgic. I was remembering the time Raven tried to bake a pie. She must have been around twelve at the time.” He chuckles softly. “By the time she was done there was flour all over the kitchen, and the crust came out horribly to boot. We managed to salvage the apples, though.”

“Hopefully this one came out better than Raven’s did.” Erik hands the plate to Charles and watches intently as he takes a bite.

“It’s very good, Erik. I can’t help but notice that you didn’t bring a piece for yourself, though. Aren’t you going to have any?”

“No, I’m not hungry. I just thought you might like some.”

“That’s very considerate of you, my friend.”

‘My friend’ _._ Erik never knows how to feel about that phrase. It pleases him to know that Charles thinks of him in those terms and the possessive ‘my’sends a shiver up his spine, and yet it’s another reminder of what he can never have. He’s seen the pretty little things Charles picks up in bars; he knows that Charles doesn’t share his own proclivities.

“It’s nothing,” Erik says. “But while I’m here, do you have time for a game of chess?” He’ll take what he can get.

 

Without ever having meant to, he seems to have become the mansions resident chef. First the tea, then the pie, and now he’s fallen into the routine of cooking dinner on most nights. He finds it soothing after a long day of training and the recruits have very little skill in the kitchen, but truth be told, those aren’t the only reasons why he does it. He’s gotten completely hooked on the delighted looks Charles gives him when he prepares these meals. This is another new sensation. Erik has been desperate to please before, of course. When he was a child, he spent his days doing whatever he could to keep Shaw satisfied, but that was a completely different kind of desperation. That had been about survival and cessation, about making the pain _stop_ , and this… This is about _getting_. This is about being on the receiving end of something in which he can revel. Surely his world must be changing drastically if something as small as an expression can mean so much to him, and that ought to frighten him but it doesn’t. He only wants more and so he keeps cooking.  He infuses each dish with the things that he can’t express, hopes that Charles will taste the words that Erik can’t say. He isn’t exactly happy, but he feels better than he has in a long time.

But something’s different tonight, and Erik can’t quite put his finger on it. Charles smiled at him like always when he served dinner (Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables: comfort food for a cold night, a luxury he will allow himself) but now that they’ve all sat down to eat he isn’t smiling anymore. The look on his face isn’t one that Erik’s ever come across. His brows are raised ever so slightly but his eyes don’t betray any hint of surprise or mirth when they fix on Erik. The corners of Charles’s mouth are turned down a bit, and yet he doesn’t seem disappointed or angry. His shoulders aren’t tense, nor do they slump. Erik may not be able to read minds, but he’s quite proficient at reading bodies and faces and yet this is not an expression he can catalogue easily. It resembles a look of focus, but that isn’t the whole of it. There’s something else behind it that Erik can’t quite make out. He thinks that he might be getting close to pinpointing it when it changes and Erik forgets everything else.

Charles is still looking straight at Erik, but the tilt of his eyebrows has changed and his eyes have softened. His mouth is opening gently and the corners are beginning to turn up. Erik has always found Charles gorgeous but now, with that look on his face… He’s the most radiantly beautiful thing that Erik has ever seen. Charles swallows and Erik’s heartbeat is pounding in his throat and in his fingertips.

“Erik, might I have a word with you?”

He nods, not trusting himself to speak, and Charles leads him to the study. Charles closes the door firmly and then he’s in Erik’s mind.

<<This is what you look like,>> Charles projects, and suddenly Erik is seeing his own face from Charles’s vantage point. He looks utterly exposed: lips parted, brows raised and knit, eyes wide. He flinches and tries to clear the image from his head, but Charles won’t let him. <<Keep looking.>> The expression on his face remains the same, and yet it strikes a different chord inside him. What was humiliating vulnerability is now tenderness to be treasured.

<<This is how you look to me,>> Charles tells him. The words are underscored with a desire to protect and comfort and keep close. It’s a feeling with which Erik has become familiar in the time he’s known Charles.

<<I see more than your face,>> Charles continues. <<I understand. You’re not alone, Erik.>> He steps closer, and now the voice in Erik’s head is as soft as a whisper. <<I only wish you would have shown me sooner.>>

<<I tried,>> Erik answers. <<I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. Charles—>>

And then there are no more thoughts because Charles is drawing him down and kissing him breathless and all he can do is thread his fingers in Charles’s hair and return the kiss. It’s not like anything he’s ever known. It’s wonderful.

“Charles,” he breathes.

“I’m here. I’m with you.” He must be able to feel how Erik is shaking, but he isn’t drawing away from this show of weakness. Instead, he’s pressing closer and whispering how much he admires Erik’s strength. “You’ve never been stronger than you are at this moment,” he says. Erik wants to protest, but he can’t because Charles is sending him determination and courage and devotion. “This is yours, Erik. This is your strength. I’m only showing you what’s already there.”

Erik doesn’t have the words for this, but Charles is there to fill the gaps.

“I love you,” he says, and then he’s kissing Erik again.

Erik’s world tastes like chai and apples and _Charles_ , and dinner is well and truly forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this wasn't something I really expected to write. I'm only about halfway done with my fic for Secret Mutant and I have several papers to write by the end of the semester, so the last thing I needed to do was write another fic. On top of that, I'm not a fan of Like Water for Chocolate, which was the source of this prompt. But something about the prompt stuck with me, and the fic basically wrote itself. My apologies for any gramatical errors that may have snuck their way in. I let this one go unbeta'd since I wasn't supposed to be writing it anyway.


End file.
